Re: [Utopia] Debian/Ubuntu bug fixes for gnome-volume-manager

[Sjoerd Simons <sjoerd luon net>]

On Tue, Jul 05, 2005 at 07:15:21PM -0400, Colin Walters wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 23:48 +0200, Martin Pitt wrote:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > Robert Love [2005-07-05 11:15 -0400]:
> > > On Mon, 2005-07-04 at 18:05 +0200, Martin Pitt wrote:
> > > 
> > > > 04_reconnect_on_dbus_exit.patch:
> > > >   - Reconnect to dbus after restarting dbus and hal, instead of just
> > > >     crashing.
> > > >   - Important in package-based system when you want to continue to use
> > > >     your Gnome session while doing a system upgrade.
> > > 
> > > Is this the patch that generates all of those bug reports?
> > 
> > No, it was the *absence* of this patch that generated them.
> 
> This is because the Ubuntu packages restart the system bus during
> upgrades; if the packages stop doing that, this bug vanishes.  I think
> the right thing is just to delete #DEBHELPER# from the dbus-1.postinst
> file.
> 
> I feel partly to blame here because I created the initial Debian
> packages, and I didn't understand the issues then.  Fedora has also had
> this bug forever, we discussed the problem but it looks like it wasn't
> fixed.  So I just filed:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=162541

On system bus restart debian/ubuntu also stop and start the daemons that use
dbus (like hal). So for them it's not really a problem.  For applications using
services, like gvm it's somewhat more problematic, but not impossible. The
biggest problem we had with it that when it reconnected, hal was initialising
and so all the devices showed up as new, causing actions to be run again.

Applications should handle the case that the services they use restart or even
disconnect in some way in a somewhat sane manner. Or you'll slowly start
depending on more and more applications that can't be restarted, which isn't
something you want afaik.

The same for when the dbus dies (or restarts). This doesn't have to be perfect
for everything, a dbus restart should still be something very rare. For debian
stable users it's only when there was a security update for example.

The session bus isn't restarted and shouldn't. If dbus is upgraded for security
reasons then the users should restart the session, just like when other libs
that are upgraded for security reasons that might be in use.

  Sjoerd
-- 
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who,
content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.
		-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)